Jesus’ Sacrifice Makes Us a Nation of Priests

 

the reconstruction of Herod's temple in Jerusalem

        King Herod’s expansion of the temple in Jerusalem in the first century AD made his temple complex during his lifetime the “largest temple complex in the Roman world,” according to David A. DeSilva.[1] As a result, the city of Jerusalem could accommodate tens of thousands of worshipers during religious festivals.[2] The historian Josephus, wrote that from a distance the temple looked like a “snow-clad mountain.” It was covered by massive plates of gold that radiated a fiery flash from the sun (War 5.5.6). The services were run by hundreds of impressive, white-clad priests, almost 2000 priests and Levites, plus singers and musicians, officers, directors, overseers, and treasurers. Each day at least 300 priests and 400 Levites and lay representatives were present.[3] The temple was divided into several courts for men and women, Jews and Gentiles, and within it a Holy Place and a Holy of Holies, dedicated to God’s holy presence. The “sanctuary” was the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies,” while the “temple” included the courts and all the adjoining area. The high priest could enter the Holy of Holies only one day per year on the Day of Atonement (Heb 9:7, 25). In other words, the temple with its priests was an impressive place!

        Nevertheless, an incredible change was occasioned by the triune God. When Jesus died on the cross, Jesus “gave up his spirit, and, behold, the curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom” (Matt 27:50b-51a). The opened curtain symbolized how Christ’s sacrifice removed the barrier of purity needed to approach God. The author of Hebrews explains how Jesus as the perfect high priest[4] enters the Most Holy Place of God’s presence as a precedence for us who follow into the sanctuary of the Holy Place. We have “boldness to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb 10:19). Ever since that moment, God’s intent in the Old Testament became a reality.

        In Old Testament times, God intended the nation of Israel to become a priestly nation, as God explains when Moses went up to the mountain in Exodus 19:3-6: “tell the Israelites:  ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation’” (NRSV).

        That intention for a priestly kingdom was made possible in New Testament times by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. We see this intention referred to in the book of Revelation.

        Revelation has three spiritual songs: 14:3 and 15:3, but the first song is recorded in 5:9-10. This was called a “new praise song” or a “spiritual song,” or “ode.” Many of the psalms are called odes. An “ode” is a joyful song in the Bible and a poem, accompanied or unaccompanied by a musical instrument, about God or God’s representative. Revelation records this first song (literally):

“Worthy you are to receive the scroll and to open its seals, since you were slaughtered and you ransomed for God by your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and you made them to our God a kingdom and priests and they will reign upon the earth” (Rev 5:9-10, Aída’s translation).

        Who sang this song? The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders. Here the song is accompanied by 24 lyres. A lyre is a 3-12 string instrument. Afterwards, we are told, ten thousands times ten thousands (myriads) of angels and humans joined in as one full harmonizing voice, antiphonal-in response to the song: “Worthy is the Lamb, the One having been slaughtered, to receive the power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise” (5:8, 11-12).

     The apostle Paul also mentions “spiritual songs” in Ephesians 5:19-21. He writes that one way to be filled by the Holy Spirit is to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and to sing in our heart to the Lord, and also to thank always for all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Father-God and to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. You can see why odes are spiritual! They help us be filled by the Holy Spirit!

        The Revelation 5 song has two main parts: to whom is it addressed? The One who is worthy and why is that one worthy?

        It begins “worthy you are” emphasizing the word “worthy.”

        Who is worthy? We are told in vv. 5-6 it is the Lion who has overcome, the One from the tribe of Judah, the root or descendent of David. Who is that? Revelation 22:16 gives the answer: “It is I, Jesus…I am the root and the descendant of David.” The tribe of Judah was called a lion who rules in Jacob’s blessings of his sons in Genesis 49:9-10.

        Isaiah also prophesied about Jesus as a shoot from the stump of Jesse, David’s father, in 11:1-5:

“The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins” (NRSV).

        Jesus as a human becomes a Jew who descended from the tribe of Judah. He is victorious, but the mystery is that Jesus as a victorious lion also was a victorious lamb “with seven horns” but “slaughtered” (Rev 5:6). Seven horns are a symbol for strength and power. The horns of a calf are like the crowns of a king.

         Here is another marvel! The lion overcomes by becoming a lamb!

         Revelation tells us that Jesus is worthy of doing two key things: to receive the scroll, and to open its seven seals.

        What is the scroll mentioned in Revelation 5:1? This book has all of God’s plans for the future. Revelation 4:1 says: “I will show you what is necessary to happen after these things.” By Jesus taking the scroll he becomes responsible to implement it. Many Bible interpreters see the scroll as a contract or a will not to be made public until the seals were opened. The seven seals then represent the seven witnesses to the contract.[5]

        Why is only Jesus in all creation worthy to oversee the future? We are told he was slaughtered (Rev 5:9). The prophet Isaiah wrote about the Messiah:

“he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people” (Isa 53:5-8 NRSV).

        When the Israelites were trying to escape their oppressors in Egypt, to escape the final plague, the death of the firstborn son in each family, they had to kill a lamb without any imperfections and place some of the blood on their front doorpost. They then ate the lamb for dinner (Exod 12). The Lord passed over every door that had a touch of blood on the doorpost (Exod 12:21-24). That’s the Passover! Jesus did that for us. He died so that we are forgiven our sins.

        We are like those Egyptians in that we act and think in ways displeasing to God, but we do not receive the punishment we deserve if we turn to Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

        We are also like prisoners of war. When people were conquered in ancient times, they were often turned to slaves. The majority of captured soldiers were enslaved, serving as laborers in agriculture, construction, mining, and domestic work. Some, like the Gauls, Thracians and Samnites were trained as gladiators. High status leaders were paraded through Rome in triumphal processions and then executed. However, wealthy or politically important prisoners could be ransomed.

        Jesus ransomed us for God. God frees us from our enemy—Satan—by offering Jesus for us.

        Who did God ransom? ---- everyone! Twelve Jewish tribes, and tribes everywhere; people who speak different languages; Gentiles; people living together in community: every “people and nation.”

        Is anyone left out? Is anyone not ransomed? No! Is there an age requirement? No! But we have to respond with gratitude and invite Jesus to be Lord of our life. Even in our times, prisoners of war are sometimes taken. My uncle from the Netherlands was a prisoner of war in Indonesia during World War II. In 1990, nearly 50,000 captives were returned home from Iraq to Iran. What was their ransom? Iran returned about 50,000 of Iraqis back from Iran to Iraq.[6]

        Jesus is also worthy for what he did for our future. Everyone who has been ransomed, may now as well join a new country, a country of priests. This point repeats what we learn in Revelation 1:5-6: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”

        For example, I myself have dual citizenship: the United States and the Dominican Republic. I have a passport from the US and a cedula (a social security identification) from the Dominican Republic. If you are born in the Dominican Republic, you always remain a citizen of that country.

      Do any of our readers have dual citizenship as well?

        But I also have membership in a third country, a greater one than either of these—God’s kingdom. To join it, I had to repent of my sins and aim to follow God’s laws for God’s kingdom.

        How about you? Are you also a citizen of God’s kingdom?

        Are you also not a priest?

        What do priests do now since we no longer have a temple with sacrifices? Peter writes a similar point in his first letter (2:4-12):

“Come to [Jesus], a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.  Conduct yourselves honorably among the gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge” (NRSV).

        We learn from this passage that New Testament priests “offer spiritual sacrifices.” Do you pray with others for their needs? You can become an intermediary between them and God.

        Priests would “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called them out of darkness.” Do you share with others how God has worked in your life? Jesus Christ is worthy and we should explain to others why.

        Priests tried to be holy by “abstaining from the desires of the flesh.” Do you try to practice moral habits?

        Priests conducted themselves “honorably.” We too need to behave in exemplary ways so that no one can accuse Christians of being criminals.

        Do only adults do these things? Can’t children do them as well?

        Do we do it only alone? No- we reign with God (Rev 20:6, 4). And we reign with the rest of the tribes, language groups, people, and nations.

        When we think of the temple in Jerusalem, we should be impressed, however, in contrast, in heaven we have not hundreds or thousands praising God but myriads that cannot be counted praising God. God’s shekinah glory has moved on from the beautiful ancient temple (which hardly exists now after its destruction) to the believing humans of the first century (1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16) onto the heavenly hosts in heaven. The stationary temple has become motionary again like the first tabernacle and now it moves, multicolored, throughout the world. Eventually the temple will be joined with God in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:1-3).             

          But, in the meantime, do we all live like the New Testament priests as we Christians are supposed to live?

Aída

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[1] David A. DeSilva, Archaeology and the World of Jesus: A Visual Guide (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025), 201.

[2] DeSilva, Archaeology, 202.

[3] Joachim Jeremias attempts to tally the number of each in Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 160-206.

[4] Heb 2:7; 3:1; 4:14-15; 6:20; 7:26-27; 8:1; 9:11.

[5] Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 248.

[6] www.iranintl.com/en/202508177757.

 

 

Nicodemus: How He Moved from Courage to Conviction to Proclamation as He Followed the God of Compassion (John 3) [1]

 

                                     https://paintingvalley.com/images/nicodemus-painting-16.jpg

Did you ever get in one of those binds where you really want to do something, but you’re scared to do it for some reason?

Maybe you’re worried about public opinion.

You know, you’re in one of those meetings where everyone is uncomfortable and watching everybody else to see how everybody else is going to react. Those in charge are carefully manipulating the whole scenario to move everyone to the conclusion that they want. Yes, they’re moving their agenda along smoothly – but you’ve got a growing conviction that you don’t feel where it’s going is right.

Some eloquent speaker is in the process of painting a glorious picture of promises about how, if you all just go along with this, everything is going to be wonderful. You want to object – protest, even – but it’s scary.  You feel so much pressure - the expectation to acquiesce is like a steam shovel pushing you toward the pit of agreement. You’re teetering on the edge ready for freefall. You look around – it looks like everybody else is toppling in. And the rest are looking back at you in silent disapproval that you haven’t agreed with them already and let them get on with the rest of the agenda!

Or maybe it’s even more intimate a situation than that. Maybe there’s someone you know you want to reach out to – but everybody else shuns them – they are on the outs – Out with the Out-crowd, if there ever was one. Well, the people-everyone-admires have written this loser off. If you reach out and make that social pariah your friend – well, public opinion says, “People are known by the company they keep,” so you’ll immediately have “Loser” written all over your forehead too. You will instantly be dismissed by the people-who-count – or worse than that – you’ll be mocked, or worst of all – persecuted.

Well, here was a guy with both problems.

Nicodemus—a Person of Courage

He had worked long and hard to gain the respect of his fellow Jews. In fact, he had achieved the highest religious honor a lay person could attain – he was a member of the Sanhedrin, meaning literally “the seats together” – or those who together sit in the place of decision-making and rule the people. In short, the Sanhedrin was the supreme council, comprised of seventy one elders and its power was formidable in terms of making laws, rendering judgments, and carrying those out. It traced its origin back to Moses’ day, where it claimed it descended from the advisors who helped him rule (for example, in Num 11:10-24) and then it claimed it was reorganized under Ezra right after the exile, and then again at Jamnia, the farthest city in the northwest of Judah during the First Maccabean revolt against Greek rule. In other words, the Sanhedrin was an exalted entity –- and, next to the emperor, and whoever was the latest ruler of the Jews, Herod or some Roman Procurator – its word was law.

You don’t jeopardize your position on a governmental body as powerful as this one – and you certainly don’t compromise your reputation with your fellow rulers. So here was this man, Nicodemus, and he had a major problem.

He was fascinated by Jesus. He was intrigued by his miracles, astonished at his teaching, drawn to his charismatic person – he wanted to know more…

But Jesus was as out as he could be with everybody in power – all the people-that-count.

That Nicodemus was scared was a no-brainer.  He had a lot to lose. You know, we rarely think about the courage of Nicodemus as he reached out to this “Social Pariah” – this rebel from Galilee. We scoff at the fact that he went to Jesus by night. How many of us would have gone at any point – day or night?

Well, Jesus made no secret about where he usually hung out. So, one night Nicodemus went to see him – maybe at the Garden at Gethsemane, maybe at John’s Jerusalem relatives’ home, or at Mark’s mother’s house, but here he comes approaching Jesus with humility and respect. 

He calls Jesus, “Teacher” (which is “Rabbi,” also meaning “Master,” it’s an honorary title of address).[2]

Then he makes an astounding confession.  He says: “We know that from God you have come [as] a teacher, because no one could do these works of power and signs that you do, if God were not with him” (John 3:2).[3]

That’s pretty revealing.  It displays what thinking people were already pondering – so even the Sanhedrin was not so monolithically opposed to Jesus as some might suppose.

On his side, Jesus, who could look through false flattery and see the heart - and also recognize a true inquiry when he heard one - accepts this person’s honest statement and begins to adjust Nicodemus’ perspective.

 1) First, Jesus tells him he has to abandon his old point of view – that’s no longer useful here.  Nicodemus will need to renovate his entire outlook: to be as if he were born once more as a whole new person with a whole new perspective. Why?  Because heavenly things cannot be understood with an earthly perspective (John 3:3-8).

2) Jesus has come from heaven – reminiscent of the bronze replica of the serpent that Moses raised up on a pole in Numbers 21:9, which rescued Israel by healing it from its punishment for its rebellion against God.  It was an account that Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel himself, would have known well (John 3:14-15).

3) And now Jesus delivers his message right to the heart of Nicodemus. You see, Jesus had the power to look at the heart – that is, into the will - of each person who came to him and deliver the message that person most needed to hear – the one to which they would need to respond to enter his reign.

4) To Nicodemus, Jesus delivered one of the most beautiful messages in the entire New Testament.  He told him literally: “For, in this way, God loved the world, that the Only Begotten he gave, in order that all the ones believing in him would not perish (or die, or be lost, or be ruined), but may have life eternal” (John 3:16).

The message Jesus gave Nicodemus was about the great action of the compassionate heart of God. What Jesus was saying was this: Nicodemus, God loves you so much that he sent you me, the only child of God born on this earth. You, and all faithful Israel, were right to ignore all those pagan myths about Zeus fathering children, and also to ignore everybody else who came to you claiming God was their parent. I am the only one who has descended from the Father God who created this world.

But God didn’t send me to pass judgment on everyone, like you do regularly on the Sanhedrin. I am here to rescue the world (to save it, deliver it, preserve it, make it well). In fact, I’m not here to condemn anybody.  People who shun me have already condemned themselves. If they’d rather hide in their sins, they’ve chosen their own punishment.  That’s where they’ll stay forever.

    But, you, Nicodemus, although you have come at night, have come to me – out into the light of God’s scrutiny – to show, that what you yourself said about me in true, no one could do these works of power and signs that you do, if God were not with him (John 3:2).  

Now that is what Jesus implies to Nicodemus. 

To us, and probably to Nicodemus himself, he actually appears to have kind of crept over to see Jesus under complete cover of darkness, skulking in the shadows. But Jesus is so gracious with him.  He ignores appearances and looks at Nicodemus’ heart, at its potential. He builds on the fact that Nicodemus has come into the light of God’s redeeming presence, that Nicodemus is a person who has demonstrated a respectful, kind, and compassionate heart toward Jesus, respecting Jesus, acknowledging the good that Jesus does and says, and seeking to understand more.

Nicodemus Is Convicted as He Is Reminded of the God of Compassion

So, Jesus adjusts Nicodemus’ perspective and then holds up for him a model of profound compassion – the example of God, the great Creator of the world, so caring with us wayward children that God gives us God’s unique gift – the greatest gift God could give us – God’s only Child who is fully God and fully human – whom John tells us in his gospel—comes directly from the loving embrace of our heavenly Parent – to rescue us from the consequences of the evil we do (John 1:18).

No wonder Nicodemus has his heart so stirred within him that he becomes bolder and bolder even as the pressure to reject and persecute Jesus builds – he has glimpsed the beneficent facts of heaven.

Jesus is teaching Nicodemus about the compassionate heart of God – so profoundly caring that it gives up its greatest treasure for the benefit of rebellious people. The lesson is well learned, and Nicodemus will need to understand every aspect of it as the whole precarious situation changes, as conflict escalates between Jesus and the Sanhedrin. 

What’s happened is that the people, confronted with all the healings and godly teachings of Jesus, begin wavering in their once unquestioning support of their supreme ruling body. They start asking about Jesus in John 7:25-26: “Isn’t this the one they are seeking to kill, and here he is speaking openly and nobody’s speaking to him. Perhaps the rulers actually know that he’s the Christ?”

How do you imagine that’s going down with the people-who-count?

Just as bad as you think it is.

They have had enough of this upstart from nowhere, so they send the troopers out to get him – but even these enforcers hesitate when they hear what Jesus has to say.  When they come back empty-handed and apologetic, the temple authorities demand, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” The guards reply, “Never a human spoke in this way!” (John 7:45-46).

Nicodemus Proclaims the God of Compassion

And in the controversy that follows, Nicodemus seizes his opportunity to display his own compassionate heart.  He speaks up on behalf of this Social Pariah at the tensest moment one can imagine, knowing full well the kind of disapproval his advocacy is going to draw on himself.  But he says anyway: “Does our law condemn a human without first hearing from him and to find out what he is doing?” (John 7:51).

They shout him down: “Are you also from Galilee?” they snap at him.  “Check it out!  You’ll see from Galilee no prophet comes!” (John 7:52).

But he tried…

Within a short time events climax at the Passover – the guards are sent out once again and this time they arrest Jesus, a hasty trial is assembled, false witnesses are hired, the market place rabble is roused up in support, and Jesus is executed – all with whirlwind timing. 

The whole problem of this rebel has been dealt with – with deadly efficiency – or so they think…       

Nicodemus, however, has also been undergoing a swift series of changes inside himself.

He now has the beginning of a community of like-minded friends.  Nicodemus, with Joseph of Arimathea, another member of the Sanhedrin who had also been afraid of its power, not only defies the Supreme Council, but the two go over its head and boldly procure an audience with the Roman Governor, who himself had had misgivings about executing Jesus.  They gain custody of Jesus’ body (John 19:38).

Nicodemus buys 75 pounds of expensive burial spices (myrrh and aloes) and together they embalm Jesus’ body in the Jewish style and bury it publicly, so that everyone knows who did this and where they put the body (John 19:39-42).

Many traditions tell us that this is the start of a glorious ministry for Nicodemus, who continues as “a faithful follower of Jesus in later years.”[4]

The great German New Testament scholar Theodore Zahn speculates that “if the gradual acceptance of the gospel by Nicodemus, which John describes, terminated, as it undoubtedly did, in his reception into the membership of the Church, John could have learned from him what he recalls” about that night with Jesus.[5]  This might be why we have it in such careful detail in the Gospel written by John to still bless us as we read the Scriptures today.

 The Process of Transformation

So, how do you grow a compassionate heart within yourself and help someone else grow a compassionate heart?

1) Well, first, Nicodemus began by keeping his eyes and his mind open – noticing other people, what they said, what they did.

2) Second, he didn’t let the disapproval of his social set dictate his opinion for him.  His clique may have deemed others unworthy of notice, and ignored them, but Nicodemus noticed them. 

3) In fact, he gathered information on them.

4) Once he’d begun to make up his mind to extend compassion, he tried to intercede for fair treatment of others.  He may not have been successful, but he still tried to help.

5) Following his example, we might say that we should do what we can emotionally to help others, even if it means doing it in secret.

6) If we show respect to others, we can learn the truth about them.

7) Then we need to seek out a community of like-minded people that we ourselves know will think as we do, as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did.

8) And then together we can let our courage catch up with our conviction until we are able to make a bold public stand for what we think is right.

On Jesus’ side, he didn’t just ignore someone who came to him for help just because that person was a member of a social group that was oppressing him – in this case the privileged power mongers. Instead, Jesus looked at the intentions of this individual and saw the potential.  He built on that.

The first thing Jesus did after accepting him was to help him raise his consciousness.

Here Jesus worked by the wise rule of differentiating between acceptance and approval.  He accepted Nicodemus, but Jesus did not fall into the mistake of extending to him a blanket approval of everything he did and stood for (kowtowing to him because he was a Somebody), and Jesus did not make the mistake of excusing everything he did (thinking he was a victim of his circumstances and therefore to be deemed not responsible for whatever he did).  No.  Instead, Jesus accepted Nicodemus as a seeker and then began to change Nicodemus’ own perspective about himself.

Looking at Jesus’ example, we might say, we should build our work of raising our own consciousness and the consciousnesses of others on the characteristics of God, who is the ultimate example all of us should be following: a firm but compassionate God.

Jesus could tell at a glance what people were thinking, but, then, he was God-Among-Us.  We can’t, because we’re not! So, as we are working with someone, we should get to know them well enough to reach them where they are – to speak to the concerns of their hearts, as Jesus did with Nicodemus, using God’s great example of compassion to help Nicodemus emulate and imitate God and therefore develop his own sense of compassion.

Finally, Jesus encouraged Nicodemus in his good intentions, yes, but he did so with patience, so that the Holy Spirit could grow the convictions within him.

One thing you’ll notice is that Jesus didn’t go for the quick buck – You know, like: “Hey, you’re Nicodemus, aren’t you?  You’re a guy on the Sanhedrin.  Since you’re here, you know, you could do me a good turn. How about you keeping your ears open and reporting to my disciples anything you hear that might be jeopardizing to our great ministry? And, when you can, put in a good word or two for me…okay, buddy?”

Jesus doesn’t ask Nicodemus for anything.  Jesus concentrates solely on what will help Nicodemus and Nicodemus goes away with no strings put on him except those his own conscience has created. Jesus really displays a perfectly compassionate heart that has only others’ interests in mind - and no angles...

And that’s the example Nicodemus takes away and what he slowly grows into.

You see, it is the perfect example – the example of God – the One who truly displays the perfect heart of compassion.

And it is the one pure example we need to follow, if we are going to develop such a heart within ourselves and be of any use to others who also want to develop a truly compassionate heart. Amen.                               

Bill

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[1] This blog is an adaption of a sermon preached at Pilgrim Church, Beverly, MA, Sept. 2, 2012.

[2] Barclay M. Newman, A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, revised ed.  (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellischaft, 2010), 160.

[3] All the New Testament quotations are translated from the Greek by the author.

[4] Ronald Brownrigg, Who’s Who in the New Testament (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), 319, col. 2.

[5] Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, vol 111 (Minneapolis, MN: Klock and Klock Christian Publishers, 1977) 355, note 18.